Jan 7 Sardony James: New Year, Same Dressing Gown

Sunday 7th January 2018

9:00am

It’s been an age since I’ve had a chance to write anything because I decided to go on a kind of tech-detox over Christmas. I hadn’t planned to, but I was scrolling past YET another Christmas tree Instagram photo (can we just establish that these photos are never good?) when I flung down my phone with a sigh of ennui.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ I was asked by my Dad, who had been leafing idly through my copy of The Power, with a growing look of consternation.

‘It’s only Christmas Eve and I’m already sick of the bragging,’ I said.

In a highly unprecedented display of festive joy, he chastised me for being a Grinch. Very unnecessary of him, but it made me think that maybe I’d just spare myself and everyone else and just avoid the internet for a few days. It wasn’t really such a noticeable difference while the family were here, except that I actually paid attention to the films we watched instead of blowing up the group chat with my extreme hilarity and wit (I’m sure I was very much missed).

As we rolled over into the New Year, I found myself missing it, though. All those missed opportunities for Prosecco cork-pop boomerangs! It doesn’t bear thinking about. One thing I would say, is that I have totally avoided the annual flurry of #newyearnewme posts, and for that I am extremely grateful. Maybe for some of you it works, but I for one do not need yet another set of standards to beat myself up about falling short of.

In my lengthy and varied experience (having lived for a quarter of a century) the turn of a year is not necessary for lifestyle changes. If I haven’t been driven to it by the consistent and needling pressure of hearing my neighbours exercising at dawn each day, then I’m not sure I ever will. Seriously -they’re already doing some sort of enthusiastic thumping around to music this morning. It’s Sunday! The sun’s barely risen, even the birds are still sleeping! Here I am easing myself into the morning with a podcast, and they’re already on the second set of lunges.

It’s not like it’s a #newyearnewme situation, either. They do this all the time. They’re the sort that come home at 9pm in active wear. I see them walk past the window when we’re just in pyjamas watching a BBC crime drama. Every time they trot by with their matching water bottles, I am prone on the sofa, in the same fuchsia dressing gown I’ve had for the past 7 years.

I’m sure they enjoy all the couple-lunging, but sometimes I do wonder if they envy me when they see me on the sofa yet again, in max Chill-vester Stallone mode. I do not envy them. No one should be eating dinner after 9pm.